One holiday my mother forgot to make her famed “whirligig” cookies, and all hell broke loose.
“Where’s the whirligigs?” a cousin asked as they searched the dessert counter for the chocolate swirled cookies.
“They have to be there somewhere! Obviously Kathy brought them,” said my aunt, her back to the others as she washed the never-ending pile of dishes.
“What?! No whirligigs?” another cousin echoed, panic in her eyes as she approached the typical holiday spread of pumpkin and apple pies. She muttered in disapproval as she lifted, poked and prodded for the goods.
The news quickly spread around the kitchen and others joined in, elbowing and searching for the desired treats. Like San Fermin they rushed the orange counter, hunting high and low for the obviously misplaced rubber Tupperware container they had become so familiar with year after year.
Standing between the kitchen and far room, I could see my mother sinking in her chair, pretending to be preoccupied in conversation with a relative who had not yet heard the disastrous news of the missing cookies. I watched her as she took off her glasses, pulled a half-used tissue from the pocket of her leaf-embellished vest and gingerly cleaned the gold-rimmed spectacles as a riot ensued in the kitchen.
Had she not heard? Does she not sense the tension? Peeking back through the saloon-style doors that lead from the living room to the kitchen where the food was laid out, I watched in horror as cousins, aunts, uncles and family friends began to get up in-arms over the absent cookies. Arms gesticulated, the wooden cupboards were opened and slammed shut, people looked atop appliances and in closets, all in a vain attempt to find the missing treats.
“They have to be here somewhere!” said a cousin as she went into the coat room. “Maybe Kathy left them in here.”
“Did you look on top of the fridge?” another snapped.
“Of course I looked on top of the fridge! What do you think I am?”
“Hey, you don’t suppose she didn’t make them, do you?” The room gasped at the idea of my mother, The Whirligig Queen, forgetting or, worse yet, just plain not making the traditional peanut butter and chocolate swirl treasures.
I tugged at my sagging tights and brushed back my hair with small hands. Looking from my mother and back through the cracked wooden doors, I knew confrontation was just a matter of minutes because she hadn’t made them. I knew she hadn’t. She had decided not to bother this year for some adult reason I couldn’t comprehend. And now, well, now, all hell was breaking loose.
Swallowing hard, I looked with wide-eyes back to my mother. She was calm; her brown hair curled and mounded around her head, she sat with one leg curled under her and laughed a hearty, toothy laugh. Her cheeks blushed rose which made me think that yes, of course she can hear them. She knows the mutiny that is brewing in the other room. But what is she going to do?
“Hey, Molly!” called an elder cousin in my direction. I stumbled backward, realizing that the saloon doors in all their swinging coolness had left the entire bottom half of my body exposed and was, perhaps, not an ideal hiding place to stay uninvolved in the whole ordeal. I was called into the kitchen and was soon interrogated as a material witness to either the making, or lack thereof, of the cookies.
“I dunno,” I answered coyly as they asked me where the whirligigs were. I looked from one face to the other as they towered over me in a cookie-induced delirium like addicts needing a fix. I shuffled from one foot to the other, avoiding eye contact.
“Maybe you should ask my mom?” I suggested, sweat pouring under my flannel dress. I searched for my brother in the crowd. Where’s Angus? Angus will help me! I don’t want to be the one to break the news, to oust my mom. But he was nowhere to be found. Apparently he was much smarter than I, and had made himself scarce.
In all the confusion I managed to slink away back through the doors and retreated to my mother who still sat safely in the far room.
“Mom, they want to know where the whirligigs are,” I whined.
“Do they?” she asked half amused. “I didn’t make any whirligigs this year.”
“I know that, but… But…” I tried to find the right words.
“Just tell them that they can wait ‘til Christmas. I didn’t feel like making them,” she said coolly, stroking my hair with her hand as she held a cup of Pepsi in the other.
But it was too late; the forces had spilled into the room in search of answers, demanding reason for this potential ruination of their holiday feast. They surrounded us like accusatory vultures and I buried my head into my mother’s shoulder. She smelt of Anis Anis perfume and fabric sheets.
“Kathy, where’s the whirligigs?” a cousin pleaded.
With one dismissive wave of her hand, my mother frankly explained that she had not made the cookies and that everyone would have to wait for Christmas to have them. A silence fell over the room and the cousins looked at each other in shock, disbelieving.
“But, but, you have to make them,” they begged. “It’s Thanksgiving. They’re tradition.”
“You’ll have them at Christmas. Eat some pie,” my mother said lightheartedly. I took a deep breath and watched as the family, although disappointed, smiled, accepting the grave fact that the cookies were not to be enjoyed this Thanksgiving, and perhaps appeased by the promise of enjoying them in just a few short weeks at Christmas time.
For years to come, relatives would regale at the year my mother failed to make whirligigs and teased that she couldn’t come to holidays without them. Now, that jocular threat has been passed down to me.
Before my mother passed, she taught me how to make whirligigs. Too sick to stand by my side while I made the cookies, she directed me from the couch, calling out ingredients and tricks she had learned by trial and error over the many years of preparing the cookies for the holidays. Amused with herself, she revealed the secret ingredient, something she had not shared with anyone else. And although her appetite was diminishing, she still enjoyed licking a beater with me and even indulged in a slice of the raw dough.
It’s true, I had learned to make them before. Each holiday season I’d help my mother sift the flour and melt the chocolate, but there was something more serious when recently she suggested we make them together. Maybe she felt that this was an important legacy I needed to carry on. Maybe she just didn’t want another mutiny in her memory.
That last cookie-making moment was sacred to me, is sacred to me. And as the holidays approach, my first holidays without my mother here, I find myself hesitant to make them. But I know with each bite, each savory morsel of swirled goodness, she’ll be with us.
I like that.
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